For whatever reason, whenever we have a race day here in Miami it just so happens to align with cold fronts...but no complaints since I know most of the northern hemisphere is much colder than us. Special thanks to the team at Jimmy Lewis and Kiteracing.com for putting on the race, and for Adventure Sports Miami for hosting it! Pictures can be seen via FB at the link below....we are going to make this a regular thing here in Miami. Best way to stay informed if you want to come race is to "like" Adventure Sports Miami on facebook. We'll send out notifications through them.

Sunday brought the city of Miami a brisk northwesterly with blue skies and pretty darn cold temperatures (upper 50's, lower 60's). 6 racers made the trek from around south florida, including Slalom World Champ Damien LeRoy. Strategy was the talk of the rigging area as the other 5 competitors schemed on how to take the boy wonder down...

The race course was a double windward-leeward with about a 5-7 minute first beat depending on how clever you were. The course was setup right along a distinct breeze line caused by the offshore winds. Being "in phase" with the oscillations was certainly the name of the game along with getting into stronger pressure on the right of the wind line. Breeze was between 12-20 knots.

The first race was particularly exciting as it saw the return of Kent Marinkovic to the water. Knee injuries, arthritis, and some confusion with his Medicare coverage has kept him shoreside most of the season. To none of our surprise Kent and Damo ducked the fleet on port and quickly established a commanding lead in the stronger pressure out right. Damo pulled ahead and away for the remainder of the race on his new Aguera 69 speed machine, while Kent struggled with too small a kite. I overtook him halfway up the beat but couldn't manage to catch Damo. Garry showed some awesome speed on his new Mikes Lab board and finished in 3rd in the early races.

The trend continued in the later races. Kent had some technical difficulties and had to retire, while windsurfing guru Dan Kerkhoff and Naples ripper Enrique Gianello began to find their form. By the final race things began to get closer, with Damo only holding about a 15 second advantage over me and Menkster (remember that 15 seconds on a small course is still a savage beating). On the last beat of the last race Menk found his mojo upwind and overtook me. He sailed a perfect beat and came out on starboard layline closing the gap significantly on Damo. As was the theme of the day, with the large puffs rolling through, whoever was in the pressure was styling, while whoever wasn't was wishing for beer.

The wind quickly died after that, despite valiant efforts by Garry and Enrique to try to make it work....which resulted in a boat rescue.

fun times all around, hopefully we'll do it again next week....stay tuned.

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